Tagged with “united states”
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In a sweeping and engaging talk Niall Ferguson reviews and summarises the arguments and claims he’s made in over a dozen of his books as well as in numerous articles and commentaries. He reflects on the importance of history and how it can be applied to the present, the current state of the world economy, populism as a political and cultural force and what the prospect of a Trump presidency might mean.

Highlights of an evening with Niall Ferguson presented by the Centre for Independent Studies, the Sydney Opera House 22 May 2016

Seventy five years ago the American author John Steinbeck published what was to become his most-celebrated novel: The Grapes of Wrath. At the centre of the book is the story of the Joad Family whose farmland in Oklahoma, in America’s mid-west, has turned to dust and whose farm has been repossessed. Faced with destitution they make the epic journey from Oklahoma to California in search of work and a better life. Along the way they are victims of prejudice and face exploitation at the hands of unscrupulous employers.

The book was an overnight success and for many became the parable of America’s experience of the Great Depression. But it was also controversial with its critics seeing it as little more than thinly disguised left-wing propaganda.

The BBC’s North America Editor, Mark Mardell has retraced the Joads’ journey to explore the relevance of the book’s themes in today’s America.

Such topics are rarely at the top of the political agenda. Yet the changes they’re causing, often below the radar, are monumental. Issues of personhood, identity, ethics, are at play. The human future may be very different from the human past as these changes are negotiated and assimilated.

And so may human politics.

To help us prepare for this radical future is Jonathan Moreno, author of the new book The Body Politic: The Battle Over Science in America, which underscores the strange bedfellow allegiances that may occur in what has been called our "biological century."

Jonathan Moreno is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is one of 13 Penn Integrates Knowledge university professors.

He is a historian, medical ethicist, and philosopher, and was part of Barack Obama’s transition team.

What can government learn from Google and the Web 2.0 explosion? Wikipedia, Amazon, Linux - the code behind every Google server - all derive their value from its users and their participation. How can government learn to harness this collective brain-power to solve our biggest challenges? Is ‘direct democracy’ no longer a dusty thousand year-old Greek ideal? TechGuru Tim O’Reilly discusses Gov 2.0.

Thomas Jefferson was as passionate about building his house as he was about founding the United States; he designed Monticello to the fraction of an inch and never stopped changing it. Yet Monticello was also a plantation worked by slaves, some of them Jefferson’s own children.

Bigfoot historian Niall Ferguson made his name with a fearless readiness to speak to history and our moment in it in the biggest terms.

If you want to talk about the rise and fall of empires – Roman, American, British, Soviet – Ferguson’s your man. Now he’s followed history right into the middle of a raging debate over whether we need more stimulus spending right now, or need to slam on the spending brakes to avoid a system collapse.

Linda Melvern is an investigative journalist and author. A world expert on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, she was a consultant to the prosecution team at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in the military one case. She is an Honorary Professor of the Department of International Politics (University of Wales - Aberystwyth).

(May 6, 2009 at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE))